Dee Dee Ramone

So said Dee Dee Ramone once upon a time, according to BrainyQuote, although the site offers neither attribution for the quote nor any idea as to when he supposedly said it. Unfortunately, we can at least be certain that, if he did indeed say it, he did so more than a dozen years ago, as today marks the 12th anniversary of the death of the Ramones’ bassist and frequent songwriter.

Born Douglas Glenn Colvin on September 18, 1952 in Fort Lee, Virginia, the future Dee Dee Ramone was a military brat – his father was a career officer in the U.S. Army – who spent more of his childhood than not in Germany, although he eventually found himself in Queens, New York, which is where he met his future band of bruddas: Johnny, Joey, and Tommy. Per Ramones: An American Band, Dee Dee’s musical tastes were varied: he “embraced the (Rolling) Stones and Jimi Hendrix, but he later liked Paul McCartney and Wings, and even had an autographed bio of the Scottish bubblegum sensation the Bay City Rollers.”